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ABBOTTABAD, Pakistan - Four helicopters swooped in the early hours of
this morning in Pakistan and killed Osama bin Laden in a fiery raid on his fortress-like compound
in a town that is home to three army regiments. His location raised pointed questions over whether
Pakistani authorities knew of the whereabouts of the world's most wanted man.

The al-Qaida chief was living in a house in the town of Abbottabad that a
U.S. official said was "custom built to hide someone of significance." Abbottabad is around 60
miles from the capital Islamabad, far from the remote mountain caves along the Pakistan-Afghanistan
tribal border where most intelligence assessments had put bin Laden in recent years.

The house was 100 yards from the gate of the Kakul Military Academy, an
army run institution where top officers train. A Pakistan intelligence official said the property
where bin Laden was staying was 3,000 square feet.

An American administration official said the compound was built in 2005
at the end of a narrow dirt road with "extraordinary" security measures. He said it had 12 to
18-feet walls topped with barbed wire with two security gates and no telephone or Internet service
connected to it.

Critics have long accused elements of Pakistan's security establishment
of protecting bin Laden, though Islamabad has always denied this. Ties between the United States
and Pakistan have hit a low point in recent months over the future of Afghanistan, and any hint of
possible Pakistani collusion with bin Laden could hit them hard even amid the jubilation of getting
American's No. 1 enemy.

One Pakistani official said the choppers took off from a Pakistani air
base, suggesting some cooperation in the raid. But President Barack Obama did not thank Pakistan in
his statement on bin Laden's death.

Pakistan's foreign office hailed the death as a breakthrough in the
international campaign against militancy, and noted al-Qaida "had declared war on Pakistan" and
killed thousands of Pakistani civilians and security officers.

It emphasized that the operation to kill bin Laden was an American one,
and did not mention any concerns that Pakistani officials may have been protecting bin Laden in
some way.

A witness and a Pakistani official said bin Laden's guards opened fire
from the roof of the compound in the small northwestern town of Abbottabad, and one of the choppers
crashed. However U.S. officials said no Americans were hurt in the operation. The sound of at least
two explosions rocked Abbottabad as the fighting raged.

It was not known how long bin Laden had been in Abbottabad, which is less
than half a days drive from the border region with Afghanistan.

Pakistani officials said a son of bin Laden and three other people were
killed.

Other unidentified males were taken by helicopter away from the scene,
while four children and two woman were arrested and left in an ambulance, the official said.

"I heard a thundering sound, followed by heavy firing. Then firing
suddenly stopped. Then more thundering, then a big blast," he said. "In the morning when we went
out to see what happened, some helicopter wreckage was lying in an open field."

"Intelligence analysts concluded that this compound was custom built to
hide someone of significance," he said.

A Pakistani official in the town said fighters on the roof opened fire on
the choppers as they came close to the building with rocket propelled grenades. Another official
said four helicopters took off from the Ghazi air base in northwest Pakistan.

Last summer, the U.S. army was based in Ghazi to help out in the
aftermath of the floods.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity
of the information.

Pakistan has in the past cooperated with the CIA in arresting al-Qaida
suspects on its soil, but relations between its main intelligence agency and the CIA had been very
strained in recent months amid tensions over the future of Afghanistan.

In late January, a senior Indonesian al-Qaida operative, Umar Patek, was
arrested at another location in Abbottabad.

News of his arrest only broke in late March. A Pakistani intelligence
official said its officers were led to the house where Patek was staying after they arrested an
al-Qaida facilitator, Tahir Shahzad, who worked at the post office there.